


there is always, and in it, us

by dante_kent



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: M/M, So guess what happens, because there is an ian gallagher and a mickey milkovich in every universe, where physics and fandom collide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-18
Updated: 2016-04-18
Packaged: 2018-06-02 23:11:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6586690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dante_kent/pseuds/dante_kent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which there are an infinite number of universes, and Ian and Mickey collide in all of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	there is always, and in it, us

There’s the universe in which they never met, where Mandy never said what she said and he didn’t have to lock himself in the store room and hide from pounding fists and shouted words. He never helped Mandy, they never became friends, and he never spared a second thought for the Milkoviches who lived around the corner. He finishes high school and joins the army and ships off overseas, and when he finishes his second tour, he comes home and tries to figure out what the hell comes next.

And one day he walks into the Alibi and there’s a boy playing pool in the corner, and Ian doesn’t realize he’s staring until someone shoves past him, grumbling about how he’s blocking the door. Ian nurses a drink at the bar and sneaks glances until the boy finishes his game, and then Ian’s at his side, offering bets and calling next, his eyes catching on the way the boy’s fingers slide down the pool cue.

The boy’s name is Mickey, and he has blue eyes and an easy smile and a loud bark of a laugh, and Ian wants to be near him always. One pool game turns into a drink in the corner booth, which turns to plans to meet up again over the weekend. And then it’s a regular thing, pool and drinks and sometimes walking around the neighbourhood sharing a smoke or shooting guns under the El. Mickey helps him hunt for apartments and Ian spends the night on Mickey’s couch when he gets too drunk and doesn’t want to deal with the noise of the Gallagher house when he inevitably wakes up with a hangover. There’s always a glass of water and some aspirin on the coffee table in the morning, and Ian barely even feels the headache through his smile.

When Ian finally kisses him, he has known Mickey for one year, seven months, 12 days, and 5 hours. He has been in love with him for one year, seven months, 12 days, and 4 and a half hours. Ian Gallagher is 28 years old. He’s been to 14 countries, fought and killed for his nation, been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, fought through hell and back to get through it, get through wars and poverty and his own mind. He did it all, and so much more, and survived. But standing on the rooftop of an abandoned building, with the stars above him and the summer air shimmering around him, he finally kisses Mickey Milkovich, and when Mickey kisses him back, Ian knows. His life just began.

~

Then there’s the universe where Mickey didn’t get kicked off the baseball team. The coach issues him a warning, but lets his offense slide. And Ian sidles up to Mickey after the game and offers him his juicebox, and when Mickey takes it, his hands are rough, but he almost smiles.

They walk home from practice together after that, and the day after that, until Mickey’s coming over to Ian’s house and meeting Fiona and playing cards in the van in the back with Ian and Lip. Mickey brings Ian home to meet Mandy, and they all spend afternoons and weekends and summers together until no one remembers what the Gallagher kids look like without the Milkoviches in tow.

Ian kisses Mickey on his thirteenth birthday, tipsy from the whiskey Mickey gave him as his ‘present.’ He kisses him quickly, shyly, and he looks down afterwards, blushing and nervous and scared to see the look in Mickey’ eyes. But Mickey takes his hand, and it’s better than the whiskey or the Cubs shirt his family gives him later or the cake they all devour at his party that night. It’s the best present he’s ever gotten.

They all grow up together, but Ian and Mickey grow up _together_ , and it’s all he ever wants to know. They’re careful about it, never too obvious or too out there, aware of the neighbourhood and Mickey’s father and the way of the world. But Mickey knows he is always welcome at the Gallagher house if he needs a place to hide away for a while, and Kev and Vee and Ian’s siblings are always around to protect them. They grow up knowing that there are people who love Ian and love Mickey and love who Ian and Mickey are together, and it’s all they need to be strong. That, and each other.

Ian goes to college on a baseball scholarship and Mickey follows him. They rent an apartment together, and when Ian introduces Mickey as his boyfriend to his new classmates, it feels like he’s getting away with something, stealing liberties somehow. But Mickey just shrugs and takes his hand, and it’s like it has always been, how it always will be. Ian by Mickey’s side, Mickey’s hand in his.

~

There’s the universe where they didn’t get caught, not for years, not until they were too deep and too in love to be scared. Where Mickey was there when Mandy got pregnant, and they raised money for the abortion and then some extra, and they grabbed a car and packed a bag and ran away. They drive across the country, and Ian sings along to the radio and Mickey smokes out the window and Mandy stares at the landscape sliding by and tries to forget. And sometimes Mickey climbs into the back with her instead of sitting up front with Ian, and he doesn’t say anything, but he knocks his knee against Mandy’s every few miles, like an accident, and slowly Mandy remembers how to smile.

They end up in Oregon, and the first thing they do is drive to the ocean. They run into the water, stripping clothes as they go, and by the time the sun sets, their skin is sunburned and salt-stung and they’re piled together on the sand, sleepy and content and fucking free.

They get odd jobs and rent a tiny apartment, and Ian and Mandy enroll in classes and Mickey studies for his GED. They spend most of their time at the beach and entirely too much of their money on sunscreen, because they’re all pale as fuck and Mickey whines too much when he burns and red skin inexplicably clashes with Ian’s red hair and Mandy can’t take watching the two of them rub aloe on each other’s sunburns, which always turns to something else and their apartment is _too fucking small_ for that kind of nonsense.

Ian sends postcards home, and Mandy texts Iggy on New Years,’ and Mickey stops flinching every time Ian touches him in public and Mandy dates a series of guys who are nice to her. And one morning Ian knocks on her door and tells her that he and Mickey are getting married and asks if she wants to come. They walk to the courthouse and sign some papers, and Mandy gets to be a witness and Mickey doesn’t hesitate when the clerk says they can kiss. Then they grab some sandwiches and go to the beach, and Ian lays his head in Mickey’s lap and Mandy rests her head on his shoulder, and it’s pretty fucking perfect. And the sun might be turning Ian’s nose a little pink, but it’s also glinting across the ring on his finger, and he wouldn’t trade it for anything.

~

There’s the universe in which Ian went to work that morning, and by the time Terry came in Mickey was dressed and eating a piece of toast and Terry didn’t give him a second glance. Ian stops seeing Ned and keeps kissing Mickey, and they spend hours and hours making up for lost time, kissing in alleyways and rooftops and fucking broom closets, that one time Mickey shows up at the high school, dragging Ian through the doorway and slamming him against the shelves, their lips finding each other in the darkness like magnets. They get a little sloppy, but Mickey seems to care less and less, and Ian isn’t about to stop kissing him at every opportunity, not now that he’s finally allowed, not for a single second.

They end up having a big blowout over the army, though, as Ian’s senior year rapidly approaches and his application for West Point sits on his desk, not yet filled out but still a present, tangible thing. They argue for an hour, shouting at each other in the abandoned building, where no one will hear them fighting like a couple. Mickey throws a bottle against a wall and tears his fingers through his hair and yells about Ian leaving, and Ian counters with childhood dreams and the need to get out of the Southside and tries to say in every way but out loud that leaving doesn’t mean leaving _him_.

They stay angry, though, and Ian doesn’t see Mickey for a month afterwards. He’s furious with him for the first two weeks, frustrated that Mickey can’t see why Ian has to do this, has always had to do this. The next two weeks, he just misses Mickey, more than he can cope with, and it scares him. He doesn’t know how he’ll make it through four years of the army if he can barely hold on for two weeks with Mickey just around the corner. It’s all too far away if it isn’t Mickey in his arms.

Ian shows up at Mickey’s house on the morning of their 30th day apart, and Mickey takes one look at him, his jaw clenching, before stepping out onto the porch, slamming the door behind him, and taking off down the steps. Ian follows him silently, until they’re marching up the stairs of the abandoned building where this all started. Mickey rounds on him once they reach the top floor, and just like that, he deflates, the air rushing out of his lungs, and Ian’s arms are wrapped around him before he even realizes his legs are moving.

They talk more than they’ve ever talked that day, through the afternoon and into the evening, and in between it all Ian kisses Mickey, memorizing his lips, the sounds he makes, the feeling of his skin against Ian’s fingertips. They confess things they’ve never been bold enough to say before, too exhausted from missing each other to keep their defenses up. And they make promises, and plans.

Ian attends West Point on a scholarship, and once a week, he sends Mickey a letter, sent to the Gallagher house with instructions for Fiona to deliver it to Mickey under the radar. He still texts and calls Mickey like a normal fucking person, and Mickey calls him all sorts of names for being old-fashioned, but Ian keeps writing, and every time Mickey mentions something he put in his letters, he feels warmth flare through his body. His friends make fun of the soft look on his face every time he receives a message from Mickey, but that only stokes the fire. Mickey is his to be teased for, and it’s everything.

In the end, he drops out of West Point after his sophomore year. He had been happy there, to a point, but with each lecture about military strategy, patriotism, and the American Way, Ian found himself feeling less and less enthralled. The army had been a dream, but the reality of it is somehow more hollow. He loves his friends, enjoys his classes, loves the freedom of being independent, but the army itself is just an escape. And he isn’t sure what he wants to escape anymore.

His academic advisor thinks he’s crazy, but Ian holds firm, and eventually they work up a plan, striking a scholarship deal and transferring his credits to Northwestern. He doesn’t tell Mickey or his family, just waits to have it all settled. Then he bids the army goodbye, and doesn’t look back.

He’s only ever really wanted two things in his life: West Point, and Mickey. He hadn’t wanted to choose between one or the other, but only one of them had been willing to wait for him, so he’d gone to West Point like he’d always planned. But Ian is tired of waiting too. West Point was a dream, but dreams can change. Mickey was real, _is_ real, and Ian doesn’t want to wait anymore.

Ian hand-delivers the last of his letters, grinning at the look of shock painted across Mickey’s face when he sees Ian on his doorstep. He planned to make Mickey read the letter right then and there, but he gets distracted by Mickey dragging him into his bedroom, and they don’t really resurface for a few hours. When they finally pull apart, spent and exhausted and smiling, Ian fishes for his pants (strewn somewhere on the floor near the doorway) and slips the letter out of his pocket. He watches Mickey read it, catalogues each shift of emotion, and he knows it’s stupid and sappy and way too much like a romcom, but he doesn’t give a damn, not when Mickey looks up and grins and Ian knows for sure that he doesn’t regret a single fucking thing.

Two years later, Mickey is at Ian’s graduation ceremony, sitting between Mandy and Fiona, and when the commencement speaker starts rambling about oh the places you’ll go, Ian catches Mickey’s eye and makes a face, but still, he knows. Wherever he goes, Mickey’s going too, and that makes all the difference.

~

Then there’s the universe where Mickey takes him to the hospital the second he feels able to walk again. He sits in the car, silent and aching, and at every stoplight Mickey reaches over to run his hand over Ian’s thigh.

Ian spends two weeks in the hospital, and he meets with doctors and talks to a therapist and takes a lot of pills. He hates it, wants to stop, wants to run, but then he thinks of Debbie crying after Monica left, thinks of Fiona staying up all night ordering the bills by due date. Thinks of Mickey’s face, that night in the Alibi. Even now, feels that rush of pride sweeping through his chest. He thinks of these things, and he swallows the pills, speaks to the doctors, tries, tries, _tries_.

Mickey and Fiona pick him up at the end of the two weeks, and when they ask where he wants to go, he simply replies “home.” And when Mickey pulls to a stop in front of the Gallagher house and Fiona gets out of the car, he tells her he’ll stop by tomorrow. When he turns back, Mickey’s staring at him, but his lips are curved up in a small smile. Ian quirks an eyebrow, and Mickey steps on the gas, rounding the corner towards home.

~

And then there’s the universe in which Ian and Mickey lie in bed, that night Ian gets home from the hospital, and Ian talks, talks, tells him everything that’s been swirling in his mind for months. Talks about the army, the club, the drugs. Talks about Yevgeny, the other guys, the way his mind races and his skin buzzes and he can’t fucking sleep. Talks about Monica. Talks about Frank and Lip and Fiona and everything he was always scared he’d become, talks about Terry and Mandy and Kash and even Linda. Talks about Mickey, what has happened, what is still happening. How fucking scary being in love with Mickey Milkovich has always been. How much scarier it is being Ian Gallagher right now.

And Mickey listens. And when Ian can’t talk anymore, when his throat feels as raw as his soul, Mickey kisses his hand, and they go to sleep. When Ian wakes up, he doesn’t feel good, doesn’t feel even close to okay. But he feels better, better than he did yesterday, and the day before that, and maybe that’s enough for now. Because Mickey’s still here, asleep beside him, and looking at Mickey’s profile in the morning sunlight, Ian feels his mind quiet, like the world right after a rainstorm, everything damp and muted, but fresher, too.

He’ll fight through everything just to get mornings like this. He strokes Mickey’s cheek, feels the sleepy warmth of his skin against his fingertips, and promises this man, promises himself, promises the boy that he was before all of this began, that he’ll fight. He closes his eyes again, and the world smells like rain.

~

Of course, there’s the universe where he comes home, sits on his front porch, and calls Mickey. And when Mickey skids to a stop in front of him, quick breaths puffing out in bursts of white, he finds himself at a loss for what to say. So he moves towards Mickey in three quick steps and kisses him instead, presses to him, desperate to get closer, to never be parted from this man again. And in the end, the apologies come out on their own, tumbling out of his lips and against Mickey’s, mumbled “I’m sorry’s” melding with declarations of love until he can’t speak anymore, can only gasp for breath and shudder and keep kissing Mickey. It’s messy and frightening and everything that makes them a disaster, everything that makes them strong, stronger than their families and the Southside and the whole fucking world that has tried to pry them apart.

Mickey doesn’t ask what happened with Monica, and Ian doesn’t offer it, doesn’t want to talk about the future he saw waiting for him with open arms. He doesn’t want it, doesn’t want that life. He wants this, with Mickey, with Yev and Svetlana and his siblings and Mandy somewhere out there. And he can have it. Mickey will get him there, will walk him through hell, just so long as Ian is willing to take his hand.

So he does. He laces his fingers with Mickey’s and they walk home, and Ian’s terrified, knows Mickey is too, but it doesn’t matter. If there’s one thing he’s learned from Mickey, it’s that he can be scared and still be brave.

~

And then there’s this universe. The one where Mickey is gone, locked away, and Ian is gone too, not to walls and bars but to his choices and his mistakes and his mind. In this universe, Ian carries on, buries his feelings and swallows his words and clasps his resentment close to his chest. He moves forward, forward, forward, and tells himself he doesn’t miss what he’s left behind until he starts to believe the lie.

And sometimes it’s good. He saves enough people that he thinks he must have saved himself too. An EMT is qualified to do that. People call him a hero, so he must be alright. Heroes always are.

But every night, he dreams of those universes, the multitudes of him, the infinite number of worlds stacked side by side. And in all of those universes, he sees himself, and he sees Mickey. Together. Always, always together.

Every choice creates a new universe. Every moment, a new universe, one after another after another, and in every one, there’s an Ian and a Mickey, coming together, falling back together, being together, together, _together_. Except this one. His nights are filled with visions, glimpses into the lives he’ll never have, the lives another him is living every day. When he wakes up in the morning, he shakes them off, keeps moving forward, can’t look back. Never look back.

But god, he wishes he could be any of those other him’s, all those Ian Gallaghers who were strong, who just fucking tried. He wants to be able to complete the set, to align this one divergent universe with the rest of them, smoothing this one chink until he completes the perfect circle. He wants the lives those other him’s are living, any of them, all of them, each one chaotic and difficult and beautiful.

He wishes he could be brave.

- _fin_

 

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by tumblr tags and my casual, vaguely scientific belief in alternate universes. So, yeah. 
> 
> Come play on tumblr! Find me at [andcurioser](http://andcurioser.tumblr.com).


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